The Pros And Cons Of Police Brutality

One of the main issues surrounding the American society today is the clash of thoughts between law enforcement officials and citizens. This situation stems from the often seen unreasonable force used by the police. Movements such as Black Lives Matter, are trying to make the police accountable for their actions to use lethal force. This use of force, however, has been present in the American law enforcement for a long time. Stemming from the days of Jim Crow laws, police has used excessive force to keep African Americans from protesting and sharing their views on the government. Recently, police brutality has emerged with an emphasis on African Americans and certain minorities. Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Walter Scott are some of the many

One of their main points is that the law clearly provides law enforcement officials the right to use deadly force whenever it is reasonable. Sergeant Kevin Sailor is a veteran of the Colorado police department. Sailor states that “There is nothing in the law that specifically mandates a person be armed before deadly force can be used. It depends on a totality of the circumstances, and there are a multitude of situations where the use of deadly force on unarmed suspects may be legally permitted” (Sailor, 2016). . In Graham v. Connor, the Supreme Court ruled that the use of excessive force is weighted upon the circumstances involved at that time. This provides evidence that the law, in fact, interprets the actions of officers in a different way than the public and media does. People like sailor argue that many factors are in play whenever an officer approaches a suspect. Time, physical status of the suspect, and the environment are some of the factors involved. In fact, the training provided to police officers are aimed towards the effective handling of these issues. San Diego police Officer Ken Kries provides more insight to this. Kries states that “The officer is always going to react to the suspect’s threat, which will always put him behind, no matter what” (Kries, 2014). Police officers are trained to understand that time is always against them.

Following several videos of police brutality that surfaced social media, people are demanding for a reform in the law enforcement system. One of the main arguments is that law enforcement officials are overstepping on their power to consider what a reasonable way to deal with suspects is and what is not. The law requires two conditions to be met in order to justify the use of deadly force. They are called the “necessity” and “proportionality” requirements. The proportionality requirement considers whether that person is a threat to the police officer or the environment. The necessity requirement considers whether the use of force is necessary at that point in time. What accounts for the huge outrage of this group is that police officers are often not carefully analyzing what type of situation they are dealing with. Police officers are using their instinct to decide whether or not they should use deadly force or not. This means that suspects do not have a say in the matter because it is always down to the perspective of the officer. Chris Gebhardt is a former lieutenant with the Metropolitan Police Department who gives his thought to journalist Lee Steorts on the death of Milton Hall. Gebhardt states that “they have basically said that a dog’s life is more valuable than a human’s” (Gebhardt, 2015). He was referring to the K9